In reply to Parker with too many Projects :
That's a big splat.
Apparently the IFT-4 booster landed dead on target at 0 velocity. The ship was about 6 km off target - which is why you don't want to be hanging around the expected target area watching at this point :)
I was curious about how the other flaps looked after seeing the one burning up. Wonder if they all had the same issue.
We have video of the booster landing. So easy to forget how big this thing is, it's basically a skyscraper flying around.
Apologies for the Xitter link, they didn't post it to YouTube (yet).
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1799458854067118450?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1799458854067118450%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=
In reply to Keith Tanner :
That transonic shockwave is MASSIVE 
I wonder if that's why they had some Raptor destruction on the landing burn re-light?
Not a SpaceX launch, but an unintentional SpaceX clone launch. Didn't go so well:
My phone keeps dinging with updates as tonight’s Türksat 6A launch gets rescheduled and rescheduled. Sunset launch, maybe?
Starship 5 launch in about 5 minutes (maybe)
Well that was incredible!
Not sure I would want to be near the tower for that test, you can see the field of tanks right next to it as it lands!
That was really impressive, catching the booster. Looked like they still have burn through on the flaps of Ship. There has to be a way to stop that. I think the Ship 2.0 has the flaps mounted higher up on the sides to get them out of the worst of the heating. It was also pretty cool seeing Ship landing in the ocean and exploding when it fell over. Nice that it landed so close to a ship, wonder if that was intentional, I wouldn't think so. I know FAA has already approved Flight 6, wonder how long they will wait to launch
I think the camera platform for the Ship landing was a buoy, not a ship. But they nailed their targeting.
The front flaps are indeed moving leeward for the next iteration. I think that'll fix the flap burn-through problem. Not sure when we'll see one of those launch.
The view of the catch from the tower was great. I'm looking forward to the SpaceX supercut that will undoubtedly show up in a few days from all the cameras they didn't broadcast.
Europa Clipper on Super Heavy tomorrow and Crew-8 is on the way home. It's a busy time.
That's insanely fascinating. And exciting for what the future holds.
My wife was visiting our daughter and went out to watch comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) this last Tuesday night (10-15-24) right after sunset. They didn't see the comet but took photos of this. Daughter guessed what it was, wife didn't. I went out but it was cloudy here.
Starliner test launch today, in a few hours - 2:00-2:30 PST
Similar test to the last one but this is a full day launch to allow a daylight landing of the Starship (into the Indian ociean). Booster should be returning to the launch site again.
Starship’s upper stage will fly the same suborbital trajectory as the previous flight test, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. An additional objective for this flight will be attempting an in-space burn using a single Raptor engine, further demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn prior to orbital missions.
Several thermal protection experiments and operational changes will test the limits of Starship’s capabilities and generate flight data to inform plans for ship catch and reuse. The flight test will assess new secondary thermal protection materials and will have entire sections of heat shield tiles removed on either side of the ship in locations being studied for catch-enabling hardware on future vehicles. The ship also will intentionally fly at a higher angle of attack in the final phase of descent, purposefully stressing the limits of flap control to gain data on future landing profiles. Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations.
Some pretty cool shots from the belly flop as it came up on the cloud base. Ship seemed to land softly on the ocean. It broke up a bit when it fell over, so hard to say if they will recover anything (not that it really maters).
They actually degraded the heat shield on this flight to see what would fail, and it seemed to do pretty good (there was a clear burn through on one fin).
It was really hard to watch coverage of it today. None of the YouTubers seemed to be covering it. Where was Everyday Astronaut?
I did have a moment to take a break and watch the initial launch and booster splashdown on X though. Very, very cool. Go SpaceX!
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